My Girl, Cockroach

My ex-girlfriend, Cockroach (just a nickname), was so special (and, for all I know, she still is).  I remember how she worried about me being dressed too nicely before I met her parents for the first time, how she insisted that I change into something even more slovenly than what I was already wearing.  She was so comfortable with underachievement. I think she might have romanticized failure, and we were so heavy into each other.

Once, in preparation for a European holiday with her family, she was reading up on the Hapsburgs.  I remember her telling me some story about the Hapsburg army decimating some other king’s army at some battle.  The non-Hapsburg king was felled and was clearly dead, but his outnumbered soldiers who’d been fighting by his side remained loyal. Rather than fleeing, as they could have successfully done, they instead dove onto the king’s corpse (and toward their certain doom) in order to shield his corpse from the indignity of further blows from the swarming Hapsburg halberdiers.  Cockroach was nearly ecstatic.  She thought that story was so sexy, and I knew right then that I’d never be enough for her.

Cockroach was hella anti-Jesus.  She was pretty much down on religion generally, but she had some particular grudge against Jesus.  She had these blowdarts, and on her dartboard was an image of Jesus, one of those old-fashioned icons like in Andrei Rublev.  She’d invite visitors to play blowdarts, and she’d distrust those who declined.  “I can’t trust anyone who isn’t willing to shoot Jesus in the face with a blowdart,” she’d always say.

One time we were at my house and I was playing Big Star and that song “Jesus Christ Was Born Today” came on, such a good song, but Cockroach claimed that she found the song deeply offensive.  I suggested that she should relax because it was such a good song and because Jesus wasn’t really all that bad, but she just got up and turned off the stereo.  Cockroach was so rude, almost pathologically so, and she had such terrible taste in music.

What I never understood is how Cockroach couldn't see the erotic charm of Jesus’ martyrdom.  The very concept of the martyr, the heroic victim, involves just the sort of paradoxical interplay between power and helplessness that always seemed to turn Cockroach on immensely. How could those absurdly enthusiastic anti-Hapsburg soldiers of hers have been so sexy, but Jesus’ sacrifice not be sexy?  That never made any sense to me.

I mean, even as a heterosexual man who hovers somewhere between agnosticism and atheism, even I can see that Jesus is obviously sexy. Jesus Christ, He’s totally sexy...He's fuckin’ rock-star sexy up there, all sweaty and half-naked and delirious with His sufferings and passions. He’s the original bad-boy heartthrob, brooding and tortured and misunderstood.  You can practically see His persecuted, defiant boner poking out from ‘neath His robe or His loincloth or whatever He’s wearing.  There wouldn’t be any James Deans or Donny Wahlbergs or any of that shit if it hadn’t been for Jesus.  He's the reason for the sleazin'.  How could Cockroach not have seen that?  It just never made sense to me.

Seinfeld As An Hour-Long Dramedy Today

Jerry notices several FEMA vehicles around town and suspects that disaster is headed for Manhattan.  He decides to check in on his Nana to make sure that she has a well-stocked emergency kit, but she's not home.  His Nana doesn't use a cell phone, so Jerry visits Uncle Leo to see if he (Uncle Leo) knows where Nana might be (he doesn't).  Uncle Leo confides in Jerry that he (Uncle Leo) has been diagnosed with cancer; he's been undergoing chemotherapy for the last several weeks, which is why his eyebrow hairs have fallen out.  Uncle Leo asks Jerry to help him obtain some marijuana to help with the nausea.  Jerry recommends that Uncle Leo sign up with a medical marijuana dispensary.  Uncle Leo reminds Jerry that medical cannabis still isn't legal in New York.  Jerry suggests going to New Jersey, but Leo is worried about marijuana use ending up in his permanent medical record and negatively impacting future eligibility for Obamacare benefits.  He would prefer to score some weed on the street.  Jerry says that he doesn't have any pot connections and refuses to help.  Uncle Leo accuses Jerry of anti-Semitism.

George is returning home from a job interview; he's wearing his slickest suit, which he recently purchased (on sale, 50% off) specifically for the interview.  He walks past Zuccotti Park and is mistaken for a fat-cat banker by some Occupy protestors, who beat him brutally.  When he gets home, his fiancee mocks and berates him for having been beaten up by anarcho-hippies.  After this humiliation, George is unable to perform sexually, and to overcome his impotence he tries Viagra.  The Viagra works like a charm, but in order to deal with his near-constant erections George must continually pop into public bathrooms around town to masturbate.  Because the doors of the bathroom stalls do not extend all the way down to the floor, a pervert in an adjacent stall attempts to initiate footsies and, in the ensuing commotion, George is discovered masturbating and is charged with lewd and lascivious behavior.

Elaine gets back together with Puddy.  They're engaged in some pillow talk when the TV announces that there's been a mass shooting at a local school.  Elaine is horrified and decides to take the money that she'd been planning to donate to the fight against global warming and instead use it to support Mayor Bloomberg's gun-control initiative. Puddy, however, feels that a Columbine-style incident every now and again is a reasonable price to pay for our Second Amendment freedoms. Elaine is disgusted by Puddy's callousness, and they break up.  To forget about Puddy, Elaine immerses herself in her work.  Her boss is absent, having been recently detained by Iranian authorities while on a hiking trip in the Near East, and so Elaine is in charge at the office.  She institutes a ban on oversized sodas in the workplace (in observance of Diabetes Awareness Month), but her underlings rebel and threaten to download virus risks onto company computers.  To ease her stress, Elaine goes binge-drinking and blacks out.  When she wakes up the next morning, she must reconstruct the events of the previous evening in order to determine whether or not she should take a morning-after pill.

Kramer and Newman are volunteering at a local AIDS clinic in order to steal medications.  They figure that if the drugs can so successfully boost the immune systems and suppress the symptoms of those with HIV then they'd do wonders for people without HIV.  Word of their racket spreads, and they start selling the drugs to folks in the neighborhood, using Monk's Coffee Shop as their base of operations. In a botched attempt to use social media as a marketing tool, Kramer posts about the scheme on Facebook.  Crazy Joe Davola, who is Kramer's Facebook friend, shows Kramer's posts to the manager of Monk's, who promptly bans Kramer and Newman from the coffee shop.  Kramer consults attorney Jackie Chiles about the possibility of suing Monk's and/or Crazy Joe, but Chiles refuses to represent Kramer because of his (Kramer's) racist tirades.  Kramer insists that he's not really a racist, and to bolster his claim he later returns to Jackie's office with an African-American youngster whom Kramer has been mentoring as he (the youngster) prepares to audition for American Idol.  The young man performs for Jackie, and Jackie is so impressed by the young man's poise that he agrees to take Kramer's case.

Meanwhile, Jerry is at Mendy's Restaurant having soup with Kenny Bania, whom Jerry has reluctantly promised to treat to lunch in return for a past favor.  Bania is making Jerry critique some new terrorism material that Bania's come up with ("...what's the deal with 9/11? ...they should call it '11/9' in Europe..."), but Bania's routine is interrupted when Uncle Leo texts Jerry to let him know that his Nana has gone upstate for the week, having eloped with her longtime lesbian lover.  Leo, a traditionalist, is beside himself over the marriage, but Jerry texts back to say that he doesn't think that there's anything unlawful or wrong with it.  Jerry calls his parents to inform them of Nana's nuptials, but Helen and Morty can't take Jerry's call as they're in the middle of a Zumba class (Morty's in training to disprove Jack Klompus' prediction that he (Morty) would break his hip were he to compete at the All-Florida Zumba Senior Challenge).

After lunch, Jerry and Bania are sharing a cab and Jerry mentions his uncle's cancer and search for medical marijuana.  Bania excitedly, almost hysterically, informs Jerry that he (Bania) knows a pot dealer who sells excellent weed.  Jerry doesn't like the idea of buying marijuana illegally, but Bania persists.  "Jerry, it's medical grade...the best, Jerry, the best!"